Home Care In Smartsville, CA

Now that’s a real kick in the asteroid.

A Northern California home burst into flames and burned to the ground after a meteor — which witnesses saw flash across the sky — apparently fell from space and slammed into the structure, according to reports.

Dustin Procita, a rancher in Nevada County, wasn’t sure what had hit his home Friday until after firefighters extinguished the blaze.

“I heard a big bang. I started to smell smoke and I went on to my porch and it was completely engulfed in flames,” Procita told KCRA.

“They said it was a meteor. I watched meteor showers and stuff as a kid, but I definitely didn’t look forward to them landing in my yard, or through my roof,” he added.

Procita had just returned inside after feeding some crows and was sitting on the couch listening to music when the mysterious object hit his home.

While scrambling away from rapidly growing flames, Procita was only able to save one of his two dogs. The second dog, named Tug, died in the fire, according to a GoFundMe.

After the puzzling incident, Procita was shown videos taken by others in the region who had spotted the bright ball of light moving across the dark night sky.

“Definitely feel very lucky that it was 30 feet away from me and not five,” he said, adding that what he had seen in the videos looked “like a flaming basketball.”

According to NASA, the southern Taurids meteor shower peaks this week. The cosmic display, also called “Halloween Fireballs,” produces the brightest meteors in the night sky each year from September to November.

The Penn Valley Fire Department and the state agency Cal Fire are investigating what started the blaze at Procita’s home, located in a rural area where many ranchers and cattle farmers have lived for multiple generations.

“Meteorite, asteroid — one of those two,” the fire department’s captain, Josh Miller, told the TV station. “I had one individual tell me about it first and like, OK, I’ll put that in the back of my mind.”

“But then more people — two, three or four more — started coming in and talking about it.”

Penn Valley firefighters received a call for a structure fire in a remote area around 7:30 p.m. — around the same time witnesses reported seeing a meteorite in the area.

“Everyone I talked to said it was a flaming ball falling from the sky and landed in that general area,” Miller said.

Since it was in a secluded location, firefighters with the Smartsville Fire Department and CalFire aided in the firefight.

Even though Halloween has passed, Procita said the fireball hitting his home may be a sign of luck.

What do you think? Post a comment.

“They say it’s a 1 in 4 trillion chance, so I guess I might be buying a lottery ticket today,” he joked.

A Northern California man wanted on a probation violation charge now faces allegations of child endangerment after authorities say they found processed cannabis, a syringe with suspected methamphetamine and heroin and loaded shotgun at his Nevada County home.

James Robert Wolfsgruber Jr., 34, was arrested on several charges Wednesday morning at his home in Smartsville, a rural community about 15 miles west of Grass Valley, the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday in a news release.

He remained in custody Friday at the Nevada County Jail. Wolfsgruber appeared for his arraignment Thursday afternoon in Nevada County Superior Court and is scheduled to return Dec. 1 for further proceedings, court records show.

On Wednesday, sheriff’s deputies and detectives were called to Wolfsgruber’s home in the 10000 block of Wild Turkey Lane. Sheriff’s officials said Nevada County Probation Department officers were already at the home to arrest Wolfsgruber on suspicion of violating probation — a charge unrelated to what authorities found at the home.

Deputies and probation officers found at the home more than 30 pounds of processed cannabis, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Processed cannabis is marijuana or its byproducts that have been processed for the commercial or wholesale markets.

Authorities said they also found an uncapped syringe on the floor filled with what is believed to be meth and heroin. They also found a loaded shotgun — with its safety off — leaning against a wall near a child’s play kitchen, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The filled syringe and the loaded shotgun were accessible to a child who was at the home, sheriff’s officials said. Nevada County Child Welfare Services social workers were called to the home, and they took custody of the child.

Wolfsgruber was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment, unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition and drug possession while in possession of a loaded firearm — all felonies, according to the Sheriff’s Office. He also faces misdemeanor charges of drug possession, cultivation of cannabis and committing a felony while on bail or own recognizance.

On Thursday, sheriff’s detectives returned to Wolfsgruber’s home to serve a newly obtained search warrant. Sheriff’s officials said the detectives seized at the home an additional 331 pounds of processed cannabis and destroyed 75 marijuana plants.

Wolfsgruber’s 68-year-old father, who also lives on the property, was cited for misdemeanor charge of unlawfully cultivating cannabis, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

SAN DIEGO, March 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Smartville, a leading developer of reliable second-life energy storage systems, has deployed its first commercially available product, the MOAB™ energy storage system, at the University of California San Diego's Library Annex.

Continue Reading

MOAB is the first second-life energy storage system to integrate and control repurposed electric vehicle battery packs from different manufacturers at varying levels of health in one unified system. By giving EV batteries a second life as ultra-low carbon storage with a high value per kilowatt hour and assured reliability, Smartville is bringing the U.S. closer to energy independence and the planet closer to a net-zero future.

UC San Diego uses Smartville's MOAB system to store solar energy from a 200-kilowatt rooftop solar array to reduce demand on the local utility grid after sunset and avoid peak electricity rates. The 500-kilowatt-hour system also provides 48 hours of emergency backup power.

"Smartville's technology, which fills a very important role in the clean energy mosaic, is exactly what California needs," said David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission at the project unveiling. "This new technology category, a subset of energy storage, answers many energy issues facing our state today. Smartville's solution completes the puzzle, and we look forward to working with them on more projects like this in the near future."

"This represents our first step in bringing a truly scalable EV battery repurposing solution to market and providing a domestically manufactured energy storage product to meet California's and the nation's infrastructure needs," said Smartville's CEO and cofounder Antoni Tong. "To accelerate our next commercial milestone, we are now speaking with venture investors interested in advancing profitable, scalable, low-carbon, low-cost solutions to our sustainable future."

About Smartville Inc.Smartville's mission is to be the world's most sustainable, scalable, and reliable EV battery repurposing platform and to revolutionize energy storage on a global scale, one battery pack, one-kilowatt hour, at a time. For more information about Smartville, please visit www.smartville.io or follow the company on LinkedIn.

Smartville Press Contact(W)right On CommunicationsPatricia Maxwell[email protected]619-249-7762

SOURCE Smartville Inc.

A lot of us Californians like to hit the open road, explore miles of highway and venture off onto some back roads. Sometimes, we come across towns with some pretty bizarre and surprising names. For this installment in our series “A Place Called What?!” we head to Timbuctoo in Yuba County.

Know a California spot with an unusual name? Tell us about it in the comments below, or send a note to [email protected].

Lane Parker says that when miners came to the area, they wanted to name it for a place that was far away and rich in gold. "They were thinking of Timbuktu in Africa," Parker says. "That stuck. They just changed the spelling."

Parker, who has written a book about Timbuctoo, says he became interested in it when he found a travel diary entry from his great-grandmother saying she had visited the town. "I had never heard of [it] before," says Parker, who lives in San Francisco, "and so I wanted to know more."

Parker left San Francisco on his motorcycle in search of Timbuctoo. "I couldn't find anything and I couldn't believe that there was just no town there," he says. "If I couldn't find the place where it was, then I wanted to find it at least on paper."

A couple of years later, Parker realized he had made a wrong turn during his first trip. Timbuctoo "was on the other side of the road a little bit farther up," he explains, but there really wasn't much to see anyway.

"There [are] the ruins of the most famous building of that town called the Wells Fargo Stewart Brothers Store," Parker says. "It's an 1855 building, built of brick and iron doors because it held Wells Fargo gold."

Parker says there was also a theater in Timbuctoo that seated 800 people. "It ended up being used by Chinese miners, who came in after all the white miners had left, and the Chinese used to sleep in the basement of that theater," he says.

But good luck trying to find this theater. If you know where to look, Parker says, you can see the graded smooth parts of the plots of the theater. "But you cannot see anything of what the town used to be except the Wells Fargo ruins. You cannot see anything."

"That's interesting to me," Parker says. "How a number of factors can create the perfect storm and a town just withers and dies."

"Timbuctoo," he says, "is the ghost of a ghost town."

YUBA COUNTY, Calif. — UPDATE: 4:45 p.m.

The Smartsville Fire in Yuba County has burned 6 acres and destroyed five structures after jumping containment, according to the state's fire department. The fire is 40% contained, and at least one person was injured.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Evacuation orders have been issued for a grass fire in Yuba County, officials report.

Residents for the city of Smartsville, which has a population of just under 200 people, are being ordered to evacuate. The evacuations are for the areas north of Highway 20, both ends of Smartsville Road and side streets. Cal Fire reports the fire is roughly 12 acres and forward progress has stopped. Two outbuildings have been destroyed by the fire.

Forward progress for the fire has stopped, according to Cal Fire.

At least two people have been injured, one suffering burns, from the fire.

The California Highway Patrol [CHP] temporarily stopped traffic along Hwy. 20 — eastbound in Browns Valley and westbound in Smartsville — due to the fire. However, not long after traffic was stopped, CHP reopened traffic to commuters.

Get the latest road conditions below:

If you live in a wildfire-prone zone, Cal Fire suggests creating a defensible space around your home. A defensible space is an area around a building in which vegetation and other debris is completely cleared. At least 100 feet is recommended.

The Department of Homeland Security suggests assembling an emergency kit that has important documents, N95 respirator masks, supplies to grab with you if you’re forced to leave at a moment’s notice. The agency also suggests signing up for local warning system notifications and know your community’s evacuation plans to best prepare yourself and your family in cases of wildfires.

RELATED:

California prepared to battle wildfires and coronavirus at the same time, Newsom says

How Placer County firefighters are preparing for an 'earlier and earlier' fire season

Investigation: PG&E funds lawsuit to hide details of its Camp Fire crimes

FOR THE LATEST WILDFIRE NEWS,DOWNLOAD OUR APP.